PERC events

This page features upcoming events of interest to PERC member and affiliated schools as well as PERC's corporate sponsors and others interested in increasing sustainability in Pennsylvania. Both PERC events and PERC member-initiated events are featured here. You can also register online here for PERC events. NOTE: To take advantage of PERC Member/Sponsor pricing on PERC events, you must LOGON so the system will display the reduced pricing during registration.

Second Nature is offering an innovative workshop to help American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) signatories develop institution-specific game plans to meet their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction goals with large-scale renewables. Second Nature has agreed to offer the workshop FREE to ALL PERC Member Schools, whether they are currently signatories or not.

This hands-on workshop will help institutions understand the GHG, economic and other benefits of on- and off-campus renewables; the process to secure them in a smart, cost-effective manner; the typical implementation challenges and how they can be overcome; and how to develop an institution-specific road-map to move an initiative forward.

Participants will hear from Meghan Chapple-Brown, Director of the Office of Sustainability at George Washington University, about their recent project to derive more than half of their electricity from solar energy without incurring additional costs.

What You Will Gain:

An understanding of what it takes to execute large-scale renewable strategies

Current dynamics of the renewables and energy markets, and the implications of delaying

Tools to facilitate dialogue on campus and ability to pursue new solutions

Interaction and problem solving with peers facing similar challenges at their institutions

Quantified benefits and a tailored, step-by-step plan based on your institution-specific data

Who Should Attend?

To receive maximum benefit, we encourage participants to send a cross-functional team of senior staff from:

Business and Finance

Sustainability

Facilities and Energy Management

ACUPCC Signatories & PERC Members should register by July 22 to secure a spot. If you have any questions about participation contact Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, Director of Membership Programs, Second Nature at jcohenrosenthal@secondnature.org.

PERC's Executive Committee provides the leadership, wisdom and insight needed to determine the priorities and direction of our organization. Membership is comprised of up to fourteen PERC Representatives from across the Commonwealth who meet once a month throughout the year. Minutes of meetings are available to PERC Members on request.

The September edition of the monthly call for PA Higher Education Food Recovery Challenge (PHE-FRC). Schools participating in the Challenge should have a representative taking part in the call. Contact PERC if you did not receive the connection information. NOTE: If you have a webcam, you have the option of video connecting during the call.

This year's annual meeting and fall conference promises to draw a record crowd. Our keynote will be given by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley. In addition to his keynote, Mr. Quigley will be in attendance during planned workshops to help build a bridge between the work DEP is tasked with doing and the interests and capabilities of Pennsylvania's colleges and universities regarding sustainability. The rest of the day will see a poster session, a panel of this year's Campus Sustainability Champions and much more. Early Registration will open in August, but we suggest you put it on your calendar now!

Lessons Learned at Penn State on Making the Case for Strategic Sustainability Planning and Measuring the Results

Are you finding it a challenge to get people engaged in sustainability initiatives? Too often, sustainability initiatives are implemented from “outside in”--and the people who should be engaged are instead resistant. When you can work from the “inside out,” the perception changes and people start to own their responsibility for increasing sustainability.

Whether you are a sustainability officer, a member of your institution’s green team, or in the highest levels of administration on your campus, if you want to move sustainability forward more effectively, this workshop was designed with you in mind.

This workshop was developed by Penn State’s Sustainability Institute and presented in a variety of higher education venues including the 2015 Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, where one participant, Bill Brown, University Director of Sustainability at Indiana University, deemed it the “best workshop I ever attended."

This workshop will:

give an overview of the strategic rationale for sustainability planning,

help attendees see the relevance to sustainability at their workplace,

provide a means for strategy development and goal setting, and

discuss a process for implementation, measurement, and tracking.

The approach: present sustainability as a strategic enabler that helps individual departments in an institution achieve their goals.

Presenters Jeremy Bean and Erik Foley will share a set of tools that they created and the facilitation techniques that have enabled them to help professionals from any area of higher education find the connection between their mission and sustainability.

The presenters will share the backstory of sustainability planning at Penn State, why the Sustainability Planning Guidebook was created, and the role it has played thus far. Participants will hear about what was learned along the way and the need for facilitative leadership. Most importantly, participants will have the opportunity to consider how they can use the tools and resources for sustainability planning in their institution.